The good, the bad and the hopeless
Chris Bertram has been to 68 of this Top 100, and that means a lot of travelling. This is his verdict and ranking on the world’s airlines, airports and agencies. Read on for some travel hacks...
AIRLINES
1. Emirates
Just have the edge over Qatar, but nothing in it. Excellent service, modern planes with entertainment you actually want to watch and food you actually want to eat. Spotlessly clean.
2. Qatar
See above. I think overall I’ve had better food on Emirates but I don’t hesitate to opt for Qatar.
3. Turkish
More or less as good as the top two. I’ve flown on a couple of older planes with Turkish of late and you do notice the difference. And the food can sometimes be a bit samey.
4. Delta
I’ve used Delta the most of any US airline and they’ve been pretty much faultless. American are fine too, but I’d always go Delta given the choice.
5. SAS
Really good – I wish they flew to more places. I’d go out my way to use them.
6. Virgin Atlantic
In the top tier from my fairly limited experiences. I’ve not used them loads as they fly from the south of England – and I’m in the north. 7. Etihad
No idea what has happened here. Used to be fantastic, as good as Emirates. Now it is verging on semi-budget, yet more expensive. A terrible first impression for Abu Dhabi.
8. Pegasus
Absolutely nothing wrong with Pegasus. Budget in terms of baggage (free hand-luggage case) and food, but for the price this Turkish operator is superb and, in my experience, reliable.
9. KLM
I used to love KLM (they fly your clubs for free if you’re a member) but they cancelled a booking a year ago (I genuinely think they were miffed at my good price) and all round they’ve got worse.
10. Jet2
Definitely the best of the UK budget operators. Not just their carry-on baggage allowance either. General attitude and also their punctuality.
11. Aer Lingus
Have done one transatlantic flight with them as well as shorter ones to Ireland and they were good.
12. Wizz Air
I’ve travelled from the UK to Abu Dhabi with Wizz and it has been absolutely fine. Basic, but fine. If you are able to deal with a possible cancellation, book Wizz. They seem to cancel more flights than most, and that is obviously a sickener if you need to be somewhere on a particular day. But they’re RIDICULOUSLY cheap.
13. Ryanair
Can I shock you? I can cope with Ryanair and their hateful website and its additional costs. I fly with them A LOT and I do admire their efforts at quick turnarounds. If you’re late with them, something really has gone wrong – they try VERY hard to be on time.
14. Easyjet
People think Easyjet are better than Ryanair – not in my experience. They are no worse but also no better, and the queuing outside Manchester Airport is a shambles.
15. BA
My absolute worst-case scenario. Expensive, an awful app, shocking service on board (and I don’t really care about service so imagine how bad it has had to be for me to say that). It took four months to be compensated for their failure in June that required me to pay for my own hotel and taxis.